The Marathon weekend proved to be great for the Wakatipu community especially as the ‘Weather Gods’ played their part nicely giving us a brilliant Saturday. This held back the snow and sleet etc. for our Sunday and Monday. The beginning of the week was certainly a shock for all of us but the temperatures are now gradually returning to where they should be at.
During that 'marathon' weekend we hosted 40 members of the International Marathon Rotary Fellowship who had traveled here from Germany, Norway, Australia, USA, United Kingdom and France. This fellowship commenced during Rotary International’s Centennial Year, 2005, when a group of French Rotarians decided to see how many Rotarians they could get to compete in the Paris Marathon in order to celebrate Rotary’s Centennial Year. They had just over 200 competing. They have since attended marathons annually - Berlin in 2006, Amsterdam 2007, New York 2008, Médoc 2009, Vienna 2010, Townsville, Australia 2011, Graz (Austria) 2012, London 2013, Rome 2014, Paris again in 2015, Budapest 2016, Ljublana 2017 and, as the Fellowship's President for the last two years resides in Australia, he decided to invite the team down under and attend the Queenstown Marathon this year.
Of course, with the large majority of their members being from European countries, their numbers were smaller than what they experience in the European marathons. Many of them took part in a two-week tour of New Zealand as part of the event. Next year they are off to Iceland.
The fellowship currently has just over 200 members from 30 different and mainly European countries. On the night prior to each marathon, they have a Pasta Night - I tried to introduce them to a Kiwi BBQ Night but that was not to be and Wild Thyme put on a great Pasta Night for them. For Saturday night we organised a more formal dinner for them at the Holiday Inn. During the dinner they acknowledged each others results during the day and the Rotary Fellowship Champion was Ralph Ludwig from Germany. He crossed the line at 4 Hours and 05 minutes.
They were extremely grateful of what Queenstown Rotary had organised for them and they praised the entire Marathon organising team for their wonderful Queenstown experience. The following day they were off to Milford Sound to experience the overnight cruise on the Milford Wanderer. They were then proceeding to Christchurch to make their homeward journeys. They were a great group of Rotarians to host and as I said earlier, were extremely grateful for what we had arranged for them.
So now looking to the future, unfortunately we have had to delay the Annual General Meeting from this week to 18th December.
AS YOU WILL ALL BE WELL AWARE from earlier Bulletins, we are joining Queenstown Inner Wheel for a Christmas event on the Million Dollar Cruise on WEDNESDAY 12th DECEMBER. This will be in lieu of our Tuesday 11th December meeting. The cost is $35.00 per person which includes the cruise and general nibbles etc. and to confirm numbers Inner Wheel have requested that you make an ‘On Line’ payment to their Bank Account 12 3405 0004003 00 to reserve your spot. The Million Dollar Cruise is limited to 65 on board and sets sail at 6.00 pm concluding at 7.30 pm.
Whilst we were contemplating the cruise being the final meeting for 2018, we shall now hold our Annual General Meeting at Wild Thyme on Tuesday 18th December. It is proposed that Esther Whiteford will be present to acknowledge the gift from the Duck Race proceeds and our Rotary Youth Exchange Students will be present to receive their blazers as they will be heading overseas early in January.
So as just about everybody now concludes their conversation with that favourite saying, I will do the same - “Have a Great Day”.
Russell.